When a 747 is rendered pilotless after crashing into a smaller plane, the control tower needs to figure out how to get someone aboard who can fly the jet. Charlton Heston and the ever-reliable George Kennedy struggle to save such passengers as Helen Reddy, Linda Blair, Gloria Swanson and Sid Caesar.

Billy Wilder made his Hollywood directorial debut with this wartime farce, cowritten with frequent collaborator Charles Brackett. Ginger Rogers sparkles as a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old girl to travel by train on a child’s fare; Ray Milland is the military man who shelters the youngster.

When Eddie Bracken is discharged from the military for chronic hay fever, his pals decide to send him home with a reputation as a great war hero. What ensues is a flurry of patriotic fervor, some genuine and some ridiculous but all of it hilarious in writer-director Preston Sturges' hands. Sturges' incisive view of what defines true heroism during wartime is as spot-on today as it was in 1944, and his direction of an ensemble of gifted character actors is a timeless delight.